Sunday, February 27, 2011

E&E caves in

I don't seem to have posted much recently...hope you've been enjoying jules' pics in the interim. Here's a little snippet of interest. Probably most of you know of the threat that Bill Hughes, publisher of possibly the worst journal in the world, E&E, made to Gavin Schmidt: "At the moment, I’m prepared to settle merely for a retraction posted on RealClimate". RC replied robustly, and there was an article in the Guardian about it a few days later.

It now seems that E&E are planning a graceful withdrawal, according to chief editor Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen as reported here:

There is quite a wide discussion about what to do. Multi-science is not rich and I have not time for legal matters!! Most think it is just not worth it. I think we could thank Gavin for the publicity and withdraw our threat, but this decision is not really mine. Benny certainly does not want to sue.

It occurs to me that, at the time he issued the threat, Bill Hughes might actually have not known quite how crap and biased E&E is, but perhaps that's too naive of me. Anyway, it serves a useful purpose as a dustbin for lunatics to publish in, which may reduce their incentive to sneak into real journals (though they still succeed there occasionally, of course). Long may it flourish!

Yes, I think on reflection you are right. I hadn't actually bothered looking very hard, and didn't think the annual review of golf coaching was particularly controversial, but I see there is a lot of crap in there too!

James:"possibly worst journal in the world" is certainly justifiable, but I'm not aware of a clear linear axis of quality. I do think it is rivaled and perhaps exceeded by discussion @ Rabett, especially around issue 19:2.

Hughes indicated in his second letter that he is 'well accustomed in respect of EE' to people straying 'across the line from insult'. In other words, Hughes knows that Gavin is far from the only person who doesn't think highly of EE.

Hughes apologised multiple times to Gavin in his short email, and it looks as if EE is not taking it any further.

Hi JamesHave you kept up with the latest Judith Curry debate? A few days ago I got fed up with her seeming acceptance of sceptic rubbish and asked her to disagree with a number of (seemingly uncontentious) points re AGW. She accepted most but refused to answer the one abour sensitivity. Eventually, after much pushing, she said that she thought it lay in the range 0-10C! She now has a big post up about this....still can't see where she thinks sensitivity might lie, nor have I heard her views on how low sensitivity can be squared with the paleo record.

However, if she does accept somewhere around 3C she will upset a lot of her new-found sceptic friends.

I won't say I never look at it, but there's far too much dross to make it worth reading carefully. And I don't just mean the comments, about the iron sun and otherwise :-)

A completely unsupported assertion of a 5% chance of negative sensitivity is...interesting. And 5% chance of exceeding 10C exceeds the most alarmist of the 14 experts surveyed here. I see no reason to revise my current (low) opinion of her credibility.

James:"possibly worst journal in the world" is certainly justifiable, but I'm unaware of a clear linear axis of quality. I do think it is rivaled and perhaps exceeded by discussion @ Rabett, especially about issue 19:2.

I think negative credibility would be unstable, as if we were all convinced to believed the opposite of what she said then we'd both get more shrill and extreme in opposite directions. I think the intertubes would snap under the strain.

James. In your link to a discussion of sensitivity back in July 2010, you said that you had little faith in high sensitivity. What do you make of the paleo record stuff from Lunt et al (2010) and Pagani et al (2010) who all use paleo estimates to suggest argue that sensitivity estimates are too low?

Hi James.Yes, but ESS is perhaps more realistic than climate sensitivity given what we know about Quaternary ice sheet responses and potential carbon feedbacks. It seems to me that the policy implications of this haven't yet been worked out.

A lot depends on the time scales. Greenland isn't going anywhere in under 1000y - even if enough melts for a sea level rise problem, the bulk of it will stay white. Also, I suspect that the human interference of the biosphere may over-ride any hypothetical natural response. It must also be recognised that the data get dodgier the further back in time we look.

But I do agree that it's worth thinking about, especially as it relates to warmer climates which may be more relevant to our future, than the more recent cold states.